If given more time to let draft picks mature, empowered to hire and fire coaches and not compromised by the owner’s headline-hogging, then history might judge Gerry McNamara quite differently.

But the general manager often vilified for the Maple Leafs’ “lost decade” of the 1980s has never wavered in the belief he was on the right track, despite working within confounding parameters set by Harold Ballard.

Almost 30 years since McNamara’s firing, the Leafs have gone through eight GMs, most of whom had more resources or autonomy — or both. However, they didn’t get to a Stanley Cup final, either. The current playoff flatline in nine of the past 10 years is far worse than McNamara’s band.

In a recent Q&A with the Society for International Hockey Research at the home of “Ultimate Leaf Fan” Mike Wilson, the reticent McNamara opened up about those turbulent times. His memory sharp at age 80, he was asked about life under Ballard, big Leafs trades, his caustic relationship with coach John Brophy, springing Miroslav Ihnacak from the Iron Curtain and his alleged role in the Doug Gilmour trade with Calgary.

It was also a chance for him to talk about some warmer memories of his long association with the Leafs, his brief, but eventful stint in goal, the break GM Jim Gregory gave him to come aboard as a scout, his discovery of Borje Salming and his successful push to draft Wendel Clark.

McNamara disagreed with many of Ballard’s words and deeds, but insists he’s not carrying a grudge decades later.

“I never ever dissed him,” McNamara said. “He treated me and my family tremendously well. That doesn’t mean he did some things he shouldn’t have, but I still respect him. He gave me the opportunity and I appreciate that.

“I said, ‘You own the club, you have a right to do whatever you want with it’. And he did.”

A crisis a day

It was Gregory who wryly stated “expect a crisis a day” when welcoming newcomers to Ballard’s inner sanctum.

That was certainly true for McNamara one morning in September 1981. The chief scout was at his desk, concerned as the whole department was when GM Punch Imlach suffered a heart attack. But the medical emergency was the opening Ballard was looking for to terminate Imlach’s second coming.

“Mr. Ballard came by and said, ‘Gerry, I want to take over. And if you can’t, I’ll bring someone in who can.’”

McNamara agreed — and was warned right away not to talk to the ailing Imlach, or risk being fired himself, a hint of what working conditions were going to be like.

“But a light bulb went off,” McNamara said.

He thought back to his post-playing days as a salesman for Moirs chocolates in Toronto, how he turned down a big promotion to his regret, how he later worked in a car wash and sold goalie equipment as he sought a way back into the NHL.

“I’d made a promise to myself, that no matter how hard a new job was, I’d never turn it down again. Because you can do it. All you ever have to do is get there and you’ll come along pretty fast.

“You do it your way, because in the end, you have to answer for it. I grew into that GM job and think I did darn fine, though lots of people won’t agree. A lot of things out there about me are half-truths, but it’s gospel according to some fans.”

Early days

Like many future Leafs, McNamara was born in mining country, near Sudbury.

His father put the 15-year-old on the train to St. Michael’s College in Toronto, following older brother Hal, a defenceman on the school’s junior team. Disembarking at Union Station, McNamara couldn’t stop staring at the Royal York Hotel, the tallest building he’d ever seen.

He came to St. Mike’s primarily to study, but had some experience in net. Hal arranged for a tryout with the Majors with the first goalie skates and proper gear his younger brother ever wore.

Only a few minutes in, Majors coach Peanuts O’Flaherty kicked him off the ice, though he eventually played on a school team that included Dick Duff and Frank Mahovlich. At the end of 1954-55, he signed a C-form with the Leafs for $2,500 and started in Sudbury of the Eastern League.

There were just six starting jobs in the NHL, but in February 1961, with Johnny Bower hurt, Imlach called McNamara up for four games. He won a game at the Gardens versus Chicago and earned a rare Leafs victory at the Montreal Forum. An untimely knee injury ended his run and he was due back in Sudbury for the playoffs. But McNamara didn’t count on Imlach’s stubborn streak providing him one more memorable start.

Kingston Frontenacs coach Wren Blair tried to force Imlach to speed up McNamara’s demotion, getting the EPHL commissioner to call him right in the Gardens training room. Blair was hoping to face McNamara in the playoffs and not the Leafs’ other backup, Cesare Maniago. An angry Imlach sent Maniago down instead and started McNamara in the season finale, a 2-2 tie in New York that had first-place and Vezina Trophy implications.

“That was Imlach,” McNamara laughed. “He didn’t want anyone telling him what to do with his team.”

McNamara didn’t return to the NHL until February 1970. While McNamara was playing senior hockey in Orillia, Leafs starter Marv Edwards got hurt and new GM Gregory asked him to back Bruce Gamble. The recall lasted the rest of the season and Gregory never forgot the contribution. A couple of years later, he offered McNamara the job as special assignment scout.

“Best thing that ever happened to me,” McNamara said.

Viking expedition

McNamara’s first scouting sojourn in Christmas of 1972 was to fly to Sweden to watch goalie Curt Larsson at an international tournament.

European players were still a curiosity at the time, but the Summit Series and the upstart WHA were about to open up recruitment across the water. McNamara was to check out Larsson’s team in Sodertalje “and see if there are any other players.”

The Barrie Flyers seniors happened to be in Stockholm facing Brynas, a local club. McNamara dropped by and was immediately transfixed by a lanky Brynas defenceman and a fleet winger who combined for seven goals in the rough ’n’ tumble game.

“I couldn’t believe what I was watching,” said McNamara, who quickly checked off the names Borje Salming and Inge Hammarstrom. “Borje had hit the referee (in an altercation with a Barrie player) with about three minutes to go and had been kicked out.

“I followed him to the room, knocked on the door, the trainer opened it. I handed Borje my card and said, ‘You play for Toronto Maple Leafs?’ He said, ‘Yeah’. Then I said, ‘Inge play for Leafs?’ He said, ‘Yeah, go see Inge. Speak better English.’

“I phoned home and said to get them on our negotiation list.”

McNamara returned in spring with chief scout Bob Davidson to see Salming star at the world championships in Moscow. There, they spotted slick Swedish winger Anders Hedberg. McNamara, thinking jackpot, added Hedberg’s name to his list, but thinks Davidson might have scared him off by being too brusque during the interview.

“My biggest mistake was not putting Ulf Nilsson on there, too,” McNamara lamented. “Nilsson wasn’t a great skater, if you remember, and I wasn’t so sure about him.”

A year later, Hedberg and Nilsson made their way to Winnipeg of the WHA. But Salming became an all-star, Hall of Famer and the franchise assist leader.

“Borje was from northern Sweden and tough as nails. I’d go in our room after a game against the Flyers and his body looked like a pin cushion from all the spears. But he never backed off an inch. He’s one of the all-time best in the NHL and I’d take him over anybody, except maybe Bobby Orr.”

Hammarstrom averaged 20 goals for four years, but lost favour with Ballard.

“I think King Clancy had the line about Hammarstrom going in the corner with a dozen eggs and not breaking any,” McNamara said.

“Mr. Ballard repeated that and it cut Inge to the quick. It had a lot to do with him leaving Toronto. He was about two years ahead of his time. He would have been flying (in a skill-friendly NHL).”

The kids are all right

While the Leafs were losing during most of the 1980s, in part because young players were getting a baptism of fire, their resulting top-10 draft crop between 1982-87 was packed with potential.

McNamara’s selections included Russ Courtnall, Al Iafrate, Clark, Vince Damphousse and Luke Richardson. Chosen not far behind were Gary Leeman, Peter Ihnacak and Todd Gill, who would also have long careers.

“Take a look at my drafts and the ones since I left and tell me we didn’t do well,” McNamara challenged. “Every one of my first-rounders went to the NHL and never played a game in the minors, other than Gary Nylund who went down for rehab. My last draft (1987), six guys went to the NHL (Richardson, Daniel Marois, John McIntyre, Joe Sacco, Mike Eastwood and Damian Rhodes).”

Using McNamara’s measuring stick, only three other Leafs drafts to date come close: 1990, 2001 and 2006, in which five of the top six picks made The Show.

McNamara didn’t claim to be perfect, such as taking Nylund third overall in 1982 ahead of future Hall of Famers Scott Stevens and Phil Housley. The Leafs’ overall won-loss-tied record was 166-302-67 in his tenure, but in his view, the impediments to progress weren’t his precious picks. It was behind the bench, with one coach in particular.

War on Carlton St.

Mike Nykoluk was coach when McNamara was promoted, followed by Dan Maloney and John Brophy. The GM had no say in their comings or goings.

“Whenever I brought (a coach’s future) up, Mr. Ballard said, ‘Don’t worry about it’. Some people would say, ‘How could you (tolerate) that?’ Well, I loved my job, loved where I was at, I loved the money. I was not about to tell him, ‘I disagree, I quit’.

“You cross him once and he’s got a memory like an elephant.”

McNamara did have gumption to put forward some intriguing names to Ballard when there were bench openings on his watch. One was ex-Leafs defenceman Pat Quinn, at the time in law school after coaching the Flyers. Ballard, however, didn’t see a fit.

McNamara also thought about giving a chance to unknown Providence College coach Lou Lamoriello.

“I’d had a relationship with Lou (who’d coached Rich Costello, a centre acquired in the Darryl Sittler trade). But Harold said, ‘I don’t want any college guy in here’. That was the end of Lou (ironically now the Leaf GM).”

There was some progress in Leafs fortunes in Maloney’s second year in ’85-86, with an upset of Chicago in the first round and going the distance with St. Louis in the division final. Maloney then wanted a new three-year contract, while Ballard told McNamara to hold firm on a one-year pact. It seemed Maloney was grudgingly going to accept and there would at least be some continuity and stability.

That is, until the day McNamara was driving Ballard home from his cottage.

“Gerry, ya know that contract for Maloney? Keep it in your pocket. I want John Brophy.”

McNamara knew Ballard had become smitten with tales of the snow-haired minor-league rogue and his antics while coaching the farm team. But the GM wasn’t a fan. He asked Ballard to hold off the hiring so he could at least size up Brophy during AHL meetings in Hilton Head, S.C.

Upon arrival in the south, McNamara was stopped by a news photographer who was searching for Brophy. When the puzzled GM asked why, the lensman informed him Brophy had just been named Leafs coach.

“I diss very few people. But if I was a Leafs player then, I’d have sued the Gardens. Brophy set back about four players, guys who could play such as Courtnall, Damphousse, Iafrate and Leeman. They hated him with a passion.”

Success came only in short bursts for Brophy. He viewed many of the young Leafs as too soft and coddled by the GM, leading to some major blow-ups.

“I went to Mr. Ballard and said, ‘You have to get rid of John’. But he said ‘Gerry, he’s coach and you better learn to get along’. You’d wondered what this guy was teaching them, but Mr. Ballard liked stories about John, how he’d break the windows on the team bus because he was mad about a loss.

“I couldn’t talk to Brophy. But he had a great relationship with the press (which the GM did not). That’s what kept him going, but it hurt the Leafs.”

Ballard was also ailing at the time, battling on multiple fronts with rivals and his family for control of the Gardens. At one point, McNamara had his permission to dump Brophy, but Ballard wavered and went underground at the crucial hour.

“The rest is history,” McNamara sighed. “I got fired. Harold did it over the phone when I was in Hartford.

“He wanted me to quit, but I said I’ve never quit anything in my life and I’m not quitting now. I also told him I’d work for nothing for half-a-year and prove I’m right and Brophy’s wrong. John was fired not too long after.

“I’ll take (the consequences) for the guys I drafted, but not the won-loss record. Because I was saddled with a coach who couldn’t win for losing.”

Miro the Zero

During 1985-86, three Czechoslovakians — Peter Ihnacak, Miroslav Frycer and Marian Stastny — were top 10 in Leafs scoring.

So when Ihnacak urged McNamara to see if brother Miroslav could be aided in defecting, the GM had some interest. Miro was a Leafs pick, who had 66 points for his club team the year before.

“I’d never seen him,” conceded McNamara. “Meanwhile, those guys are whispering in Mr. Ballard’s ear. Then he says, ‘I want you to go over there and get Ihnacak. The guys say he can play.’ ”

McNamara departed during the Christmas holidays in the strangest, most expensive and clandestine operation in Leaf history. It required payouts to Ihnacak and secret operatives on both sides of the Iron Curtain and all manner of unforeseen headaches.

McNamara and his go-between were delayed getting to Vienna for the scheduled “delivery.” Their plane arrived the day Palestinian terrorists shot up the airport and they were re-routed. After a long, tense wait, they were informed that Ihnacak was safely across.

“Then they threw a curve at me. He had a girl with him and I was told I had to pay for her (release), too.”

“The Canadian consulate was my biggest problem. They wanted to put him in a refugee camp. They also asked, ‘How’d he get here’? I said, ‘Can’t tell you’. Foreign Affairs couldn’t help us, so I phoned the Gardens and got numbers for some MPs.”

A St. Mike’s hockey connection in the Mulroney government was reached at a New Year’s Eve party and gave McNamara some direction. Passage to Canada was secured, but McNamara still had to complete the financial transaction — in cash.

“I went to the bank in Vienna to pay the guy who had come over with me and the guy who had brought Ihnacak out. The bag they gave me with the money was transparent, so you could see it all. The Iron Curtain was still up, Vienna was full of thieves and spies and I’m walking around with all this money.

“Then these guys start arguing about their share. I finally said, ‘Would you two shut up?’ We ducked into a hotel and I paid them, including in some small bills, because the bank had stuffed all the cash they had into the bag.”

The official story would be that Ihnacak came through Italy in the back of a truck. After another two days’ delay, the Leafs group was hastily summoned to the embassy and flown out: Vienna-London-Vancouver.

“We boarded a bus to take us to the waiting plane. The woman from the embassy who had helped our case gave me a big hug and said, ‘Don’t ever do this again.’ ”

Of course, Miro was much ado about nothing. He was neither as tall nor as talented as believed.

“When he skated for the first time at the Gardens and I said right away to (assistant) Gord Stellick, ‘We’re in trouble.’ ”

He played 55 Leafs games across two seasons with 17 points.

“Miro was a nice kid. He was happy to get out and I think he got about $100,000 in his contract. Maybe he didn’t have a chance with us, but I was disappointed in his skating. If I’d seen him skate over there, I’d have talked Mr. Ballard out of it.”

Looking out for No. 1

It’s hard not to think of Wendel Clark as anything but a Leaf or playing any position other than wing.

McNamara said neither might have come to pass had he not been assertive at the draft table in 1985. The last-place Leafs owned first pick and Clark, then a defenceman with Saskatoon, was considered one of the three top choices, with Michigan State forward Craig Simpson and Calgary blue-liner Dana Murzyn.

Simpson’s parents fretted about him playing for the dysfunctional Leafs. A restaurant dinner with McNamara and Maloney that was supposed to ease their concerns only seemed to make matters worse.

“I saw Craig play and he was pretty good. But Wendel, I was enamoured with. He was tough, I liked how he carried the puck with no sense of danger and how he went into corners. I didn’t like that he was up ice all night, so I said no way he’s going to play defence.”

McNamara turned down a last-minute trade offer from the Islanders for the pick (first-rounders that became Derek King and Brad Dalgarno), while some Leafs scouts fought hard to the end for Simpson.

“You have to listen to the scouts, but I was a scout myself. I said, ‘It’s my neck. We’re taking Clark.’ ”

McNamara joked that the hardest person to win over when Clark was shifted to left wing was his father Les.

“I got hammered by his dad because he thought he was the second coming of Orr. Much later, I heard Wendel say, ‘I’d like to thank Mr. McNamara for making me a forward.’

“Unfortunately, he didn’t play many games for me because he was hurt. But he made a world of difference on our team. He was not a big guy, but made others play better and tougher.”

A Killer trade

After his Leafs contract was settled, the fired McNamara took an offer from Flames GM Cliff Fletcher to scout for Calgary. Part of that involved him and colleague Larry Popein watching the Canadiens beat the Flyers in the 1989 Eastern final prior to playing Calgary for the Cup.

“Larry and I went over everything, every player, what’s their system, what they’re doing. We put in a report to crowd the centre ice line because that’s where all their plays start. They’re all barrelling through there and guys are moving the puck to them. Stop them at centre, you stop them cold. That was the trap of course, but we had no name for it. And that’s what (Flames’ coach) Terry Crisp did.”

McNamara had a Cup ring, but a couple of years later, the Flames were in much different circumstances. Fletcher had gone to the Leafs as president and GM, replaced by Doug Risebrough, who sensed it was time for a major shake-up.

“They were ready to move Doug Gilmour. There was trouble with a new contract and he wanted out in the worst way. Al Coates (Risebrough’s assistant) asked me about Pat Verbeek and Jim McKenzie (from Hartford). I said I’d take that for Gilmour. Then this Toronto thing gets going.”

McNamara had a 4:30 a.m. call from Flames management for his input on three of his former Leafs, whom he was informed were part of a 10-player proposal. McNamara said he was honest about the pluses and minuses of Leeman, defenceman Alexander Godynyuk and goaltender Jeff Reese and also gave opinion on blue-liner Michel Petit and pugilist Craig Berube. Going back East would be Gilmour, centre Kent Manderville, defencemen Jamie Macoun and Ric Nattress and netminder Rick Wamsley. McNamara said he deferred that to his Flames colleagues who knew Calgary’s roster best.

En route to Indiana on a scouting trip, McNamara couldn’t reach the Flames’ front office to get an update on the trade. If asked, he was going to express his reservations.

“But the phone was busy, busy, busy.”

Much later, when the record deal turned out to favour the Leafs so much, McNamara got part of the blame for allegedly playing up the worth of Toronto’s players.

“That gnawed at me for years. I had given my scouting report, but never recommended they take that deal, only Verbeek and McKenzie and for Gilmour.”

Dealing Darryl

McNamara made close to 30 trades, which included the departure of captain Sittler and defrocked 50-goal winger Rick Vaive. The entire top line of Vaive, Bill Derlago and John Anderson was eventually dismantled.

McNamara also moved winger Steve Thomas, but didn’t sacrifice too much youth and, over the years, brought in reasonably effective players such as Dan Daoust, Walt Poddubny, Mark Osborne, Frycer, Bill Root and Gaston Gingras.

“The toughest trade was Sittler (who had limited his destinations to the Flyers and North Stars). Minnesota was out and Philadelphia didn’t have anyone to give away. They had us and knew Darryl couldn’t go anywhere else.

“But it wound up being a pretty good one that got the second-rounder (Peter Ihnacak) and Rich Costello.”

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